2 lawyers held for submitting fake surety documents to facilitate release on bail

Pune: Police on Sunday night arrested two lawyers and booked another on charges of cheating and forgery after investigation revealed that they had since Sept 2024 facilitated release of several accused on bail by allegedly submitting fake surety documents before courts.
One Santosh Telang (32), arrested on Jan 4 for forging documents, recorded a statement under section 183 of Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) before a magisterial court specifying the role played by the three lawyers in the crime, deputy commissioner of police (zone V) Rajkumar Shinde said on Monday.
Shinde said Aslam Sayyed (45) from Vaiduwadi and Yogesh Jadhav (43) from Hadapsar, practising on criminal matters at Pune Cantonment Court in Wanowrie, were arrested. "The third, also a resident of Hadapsar, is suffering from medical ailments. He has been served with a notice asking him to join the police in investigation."
The court of judicial magistrate first class Prachi Rathod ordered the duo's police custody till Feb 5.
The DCP said they had seized a bunch of bogus documents — 91 ration cards, 11 Aadhaar cards, seal/rubber stamps — and cell phones from nine people, including Telang, arrested for running the racket.
"They had stood surety for 32 accused to release them on bail in 24 cases of serious offences such as attempted murder, body offence, burglary and firearms pending before courts in Pune, Pimpri Chinchwad and rural Pune," Shinde said.
The role of assistants/superintendents of courts would be ascertained to find out if they were in cahoots with the three lawyers, as it was former's job to verify credentials of documents before they were placed before magistrates/judges for fulfilling bail conditions, the police officer said. "Sub inspector Dhanraj Tone from Wanowrie police station, investigating officer in the ‘bogus surety' case, will submit reports before courts seeking cancellation of bail granted to 32 accused."
On the modus operandi, Shinde said the suspects, including agents and their employees, would visit courts and identify cases where bail was granted but the accused were yet to come up with surety/guarantor. "After locating their family members, the suspects using different names would submit bogus copies of Aadhaar, ration card, 7/12 revenue extracts, property papers and photographs among others as part of the procedure for standing guarantor."
Police on Jan 4 received information that a gang was involved in preparing forged documents for securing bail, Shinde said. "We arrested five people on the premises of the Cantonment court and seized bogus documents from them. Later, four more suspects were nabbed."
In the court, assistant public prosecutor Jyoti Waghmare submitted that custodial interrogation of the two lawyers was necessary to find out the exact number of people whom they had helped in executing bail bonds on the basis of fake papers, to examine their call detail records, and to establish the identity of their accomplices if any.
Defence lawyers A Rehman, Shahid Akhtar, and M M Sayyed argued that it was the duty of judicial officers or their staff to verify surety documents, and their clients had no role in the verification as they were discharging their professional duty. They claimed that the documents were genuine because the court staff verified them after checking data of real and fake surety.
If the documents were bogus, an FIR of cheating and forgery had to be registered by the court or its staff, the lawyers said. But instead, police registered the FIR, they added.
Silent protest at court
Lawyers practising at Pune Cantonment Court staged a silent protest to condemn the arrest of their colleagues. Police barricaded the premises to prevent it from turning violent.
Pune Bar Association president Hemant Zanjad told TOI that the three lawyers should be made witnesses in such cases as per a Supreme Court ruling instead of being made accused. "The statement given by a co-suspect under BNSS is not admissible in law. The lawyers do not have criminal antecedents and the nine suspects did not name them when they were in police custody," Zanjad said.